Saturday, April 24, 2010

Trash-food lobby: winning the fat war

"But it is still a chaotic patchwork thrown at a sweeping epidemic and against a marketing assault on children by fast-food and soda companies that amounted to $1.6 billion in 2006, according to a 2008 Federal Trade Commission report. Our efforts remain well short of France’s laws and initiatives that included banning vending machines from schools and replacing them with water tanks, putting warning labels on unhealthy foods, and requiring food companies to run warnings on television, radio, and billboard advertisements.

The warnings tell consumers to avoid snacks, excess sugar, fats, and salt and urge people to exercise. Companies that do not run warnings must pay the government a 1.5 percent tax on the cost of their ads. Because of the tax, few companies refuse to run the warnings, Czernichow said. That strategy should be considered in the US, where the trash-food lobby has thus far warded off national point-of-sale “fat taxes.’’"